Friday, April 20, 2012

Poetry Friday: Stained Glass Windows

When I visited Chartres Cathedral, our guide told us about a blue pigment that was used during the Middle Ages for stained glass and to which the secret is now lost. Chartres blue is well-known for its clarity and, well, blue-ness. (You can see it in the photo above.) I remembered that story about Chartres blue when I wrote this poem almost a year ago. I thought about the poem this week when I was ruminating on people who help me write.

Reader

Writer, you have a single need: a reader.
Someone who can see into your mind
As though your words were stained glass windows.
Someone who can see the whole picture
But also the details:
The red, the green, the yellow
And sometimes, that lost Chartres blue.
Someone who thinks your window
Belongs in a cathedral.
Someone who is willing to use a little Windex
When the windows are smudged.
You don't need to be on the New York Times bestseller list.
You just need one person who pays attention,
Someone who reads with love.

And don't forget to check out the latest line in the Progressive Poem. Heidi has given us a wonderful post, explaining her thought processes and introducing her daughter, who sounds like she would get along great with mine. You can see all of that here.

Ruth, I've noticed you are the reader on so many sites of Poetry Friday. You are living your poem! This is wonderfully conveyed, that need for someone to read one's lines, to look and look again, just like looking at the blue. I like hearing about that blue, sadly lost. I hadn't heard that before. Thanks!

About Me

I live with my family in Haiti (I used to call it Tecwil = The Country Where I Live in an attempt to preserve my anonymity and that of my adopted country - the earthquake changed that and everything else). I teach English to seventh and eighth graders at an international Christian school. The name of my blog comes from this song.